Mexico fans are probably gloating a little. El Tri is representing North America at the Confederations Cup, the quadrennial continental championships, in Brazil, a nice little tournament that doubles as a test run for the host country a year ahead of the World Cup. Four years ago, it was the U.S. national soccer team at […]

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If you follow global soccer, you know this is not an unusual story. Nigeria’s national team today refused to leave its hotel in Namibia because the Nigeria soccer federation had not paid the players the money they were promised for recent successes in international games. How is this possible? Because the Nigeria federation is broke […]

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Jordan is a rising sports nation. No, really. It is a country with lots of difficulties. Not much water, not much money, unstable/warlike neighbors all around them, refugees flooding the country every couple of years. But Jordan can play a few games, now. Some of it may be related to the 2010 election to the […]

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The first time I was in the same building with Walter Zenga was in 1990, at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. He was the starting goalkeeper for Italy, and they were facing Austria in the opening game of the World Cup. Zenga did not allow a goal, which was a fairly common outcome, for him, […]

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We will keep this short. Jurgen Klinsmann‘s personal animus towards Landon Donovan, the greatest soccer player in American history, is plain for all to see, and the longer he carries on his one-way feud, the worse it will be for the 2014 World Cup campaign. But this latest bit of U.S. squad maneuvering by the […]

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Time to catch up on some Landon Donovan news. This broke while I was in the U.S. soccer-news vacuum known as “Italy” … and shows that Jurgen Klinsmann continues to nurse his hard feelings towards the leading scorer in American national team history. Klinsmann did not invite Landon into the national team ahead of some […]

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I tend to like coaches of team sports. Of any of the team sports. They push you towards the goals you would set for yourself if you were not a lazy corner-cutter. They foment teamwork. They have a plan. They have expertise. They have their own perhaps selfish motives, of course. Power, money, ego. But […]

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Jurgen Klinsmann wants Landon Donovan to know he remains in the German’s doghouse. Hundshaus, I suppose it would be. I get it. I’m sure Landon does, too. Klinsmann wants everyone to know who’s the boss of the U.S. national team. On one level, I have no problem with what he is doing. On another, I […]

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Two uplifting developments for U.S. soccer today, and after that, some video from some uplifting moments from the 2010 World Cup.

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  The U.S. national soccer team won a key World Cup qualifying match over Costa Rica last night in conditions that were, oh, unusual for a game played in the Concacaf “hexagonal” — made up mostly of teams from Central America and the Caribbean. A heavy snowstorm. Don’t see that in Kingston. The Yanks defeated […]

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